THE FASCINATING DIDARGANJ YAKSHI

 Subhashis Das

 

Plate 1. The left image (a) has me standing beside the Yakshini. The right image (b) is  her portrait emanating a smile that is much enigmatic and alluring than that of Mona Lisa's.  Photo Credit (left): Abhisek Mishra.  Credit (right): Author.

    The Didarganj Yakshi/Yakshini is undeniably one of the finest sculptures of ancient Indian and indeed the supreme most that the Mauryan era has produced. Sculpted from a block of a single sandstone and transported possibly from the same quarry of Chunar in UP from where several Ashokan sculptures and pillars originate, the Yakshi has been composed with remarkable skill with the finest detail and with a mirror finish lustre; known as the Mauryan Polish. How did the craftsman procure this gleam that still exist even after more than 2000 years is yet unknown to the scholars.

   As Mauryan sculptures used to be life sized whose rears were also shaped (Plates 2) and which were extracted from the mine in Chunar and were given the yellow lustre, the Didarganj Yakshi displayed all these characteristics suggesting that the idol must be of the same period.

    The life sized Yakshi is a voluptuous figure standing barefooted 5’ 2” tall on a stone pedestal with perfectly rounded breasts and slender waist and wearing a smile more haunting than that of Monalisa’s, exuding grace and a silent sensuality; she undeniably is every male’s fantasy Plate 1 (b).     According to Charles Allen the Yakshi is also known as the Venus de Milo of Indian art. Allen opines that as she carries a fly-whisk she might have been one of the two attendants flanking a colossal central Buddha.

Plate 2. The rear of the Yakshini. Credit: Author.

    

Plate 3. The profiles of the Yakhshini. Credit: Author

   Standing in the “tribhanga” posture her garments and her jewellery have been sculpted daintily to demonstrate her elegance. She stands barefoot wearing kadas both on her hands and feet. She dons bangles, mangteeka and  kamarbandh, bangles and a garland of pearls. Her rounded face with beautifully sculpted eyes sans eyeballs is a rarity in Indian sculpture. She holds a fly whisk in her right hands hence she is also known as chowrie. Although her left hand is lost and her nose broken yet she indeed is a breathtaking sight to behold.

   That she was a procreating mother is evident from the two crescent muscles on her belly and that she was lactating is opined from her breasts of which one has been made a little larger than the other suggesting that she was sculpted on purpose as  a mother figure of the then recurring prehistoric fertility cult.

    The story behind the retrieving of the Yakshi is an interesting one. The washer men and women at Didarganj locality of Patna washed their clothes on a block of stone that stuck out of the muddy banks of the river Ganga.  One Ghulam Rasool and his men while chasing a snake which had slipped into an opening below the said block of stone tried heaving it out. In the process they pulled out an entire figurine of the Yakshi that was buried into the muddy earth.

   It was in Oct 18, 1917; Prof Samaddar of Patna College was notified of the sudden find of this exclusively beautiful statue at the banks of Ganga at Didarganj in Patna. The professor along with the then Commissioner of Patna, E.H.C. Walsh and  the noted American archaeologist Dr. Spooner who had excavated Kumhrar, salvaged the image from the banks of the Ganga at Didarganj by towing it to the Patna Museum who since then was the foremost crowd puller of the museum.   

      It was the Calcutta based historian Dr.Nihar Ranjan Roy who named her Yakshi as he believed the image revealed resemblance to the Yakshis of Mathura of 2^nd century CE. Several scholars however are of the opinion that she in most probability was a fertility figure. The image reveals influences of Greece and Persia but her countenance being round does appear Indian in origin. The statue definitely illustrates the standard of art and sculpture prevalent in contemporary Patliputra. Chandragupta’s wooden palace displayed Persian and Greek influences while both the 80 pillared hall and the palace of Ashoka was built in the Persian model possibly by masons and architects from Persia for which Patliputra was known as the Persepolis of the East.

  So enticing and alluring is the Yakshini that I could not help rewriting Leonard Cohen's poem/song "Suzzane" with that of the Yakshi. Credit: Author.

    The technique of the mirror-finish shine of the Yakshi and the Ashokan pillars and several other images of this period also known as Mauryan Polish may indicate an association between Magadh and Persia. Although debatable most scholars today are of the opinion that the Yakshi indeed belongs to the Mauryan period of 3^rd century BCE.

         The Yakshi has travelled to several countries of the world including the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art at Washington DC in America. Today she has been removed from the Patna Museum and has been housed permanently in the newly constructed Bihar Museum where she draws her admirers from all over the world.

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